Google infuses Play Newsstand, Movies & TV and Keep apps for Android with new features

While Microsoft was busy announcing its updated mobile platform (among otherthings) today, Google spent its time pushing updates for its Play Newsstand, Movies & TV and Keep apps for Android. Newsstand's update, in particular, makes it easier to discover more things to read. New tabs on the "Read now" menu provide instant access to sections like business, entertainment and sports, while the My News and My Magazines pages have been combined to form a 2-in-1 destination called My Library.

The Play Movies & TV app, on the other hand, now has a navigation bar that bundles Settings and Help & Feedback within a slide-out window, as well as a Google account switcher on top. Android Central also noticed that you can now slide a finger on the screen to rewind or go forward either continuously (if you don't lift your finger till you get to the part you want) or in 10-second intervals. Finally, Google's Keep note-taking app can now return image-only entries when you do a search, since it finally parse text written on photos like Evernote does. It also has a new Trash view that gives you access to deleted entries for up to seven days (after which, they're gone forever), and it now automatically moves checked entries to the bottom of lists. These updates should hit your Android phones and tablets soon enough, if they haven't yet.